Pay Up Or Else

Today's Cleveland Plain Dealer has an article analyzing a revealing ad the Obama campaign is running here in Ohio. In it, two women talk about Mitt Romney's opposition to the HHS contraception/abortifacient mandate. One of the women tells the other, "It's about a woman being able to make decisions." The ad then informs the viewer that Romney "Opposes requiring employers to cover contraception."

Needless to say, Romney is not advocating that contraception be outlawed. Or even that it be subject to ruinous taxes. Romney's position simply is that employers who are morally opposed to contraception should not have to subsidize their employees' use of contraception. That is the way things have worked in America for a long time, with respect to contraception and nearly everything else. By contrast, this ad tells us that if someone has to pay her own money to buy something, she is no longer "able to make decisions." Giving everyone the ability "to make decisions" under this new dispensation will be a very expensive proposition indeed. Ominously, the Plain Dealer judged this ad to be completely true.